On December 31, 2023, the fifth HiShorts! Xiamen Short Film Week concluded successfully. Five short films including "The Neighbor's Teken", "Breaking Dreams", "Sewing Love", "The Fishes" and "Brief" won the best in each category, and the short film category award in the music category was vacant.
As the largest short film festival in China with the richest content and the youngest temperament, HiShorts! has created its own unique brand over the past five years. Its growing reputation and influence have also witnessed the ecology and power of short film creation in this era.
The fifth HiShorts! received a total of 7,691 short films, and the number of submissions hit a record high. This platform is committed to "creating an Olympics for young filmmakers", trying to break the discourse system of most film festivals around the rights of film selectors, using its own competition system that pursues fairness to highlight the competitive nature of the festival and let more aspiring filmmakers Young people who use images to speak are seen, and short films are also used to create a more diverse and rich youth cultural exchange stage.
Closing ceremony scene
Short films are a “content gold mine”
HiShorts! Xiamen Short Film Week has been held for three of the five years since its inception in 2019. Although it is difficult, we insist on holding it every year, the vitality of creation is endless, and the scale of the festival is getting bigger and bigger.
In 2023, the organizers received a total of 7,691 short films from 108 countries and regions, with an international submission rate of over 56%. After the preliminary review, 207 short films were finally shortlisted for the review stage. During the 8-day short film week, there will be 40 short film screenings or groupings, or centered around different types and themes, 20 dialogues and exchanges between creators, and domestic and foreign films including the Palme d'Or, the Golden Lion, the Golden Rooster, and the Golden Horse. Winners of major film awards also came to the scene to communicate with the audience.
Coupled with the contrast between the venture capital market and the public open space of the art museum, the music festival stage and even the kickball competition among film directors, the entire festival highlights a more diverse and youthful and fashionable atmosphere that is different from traditional film festivals. .
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"I thought it was a 'content gold mine' from the beginning. The analysis and judgment of such a festival does not come from the perspective of a single film festival, but from the entire communication and content industry." Talking about the establishment of this short film festival The original intention, HiShorts! Wang Xiaoman, founder and chief curator of Xiamen Short Film Week said this.
Wang Xiaoman
Wang Xiaoman, who was born in traditional media, found that a large number of students trained by relevant universities every year, "whether they are students studying journalism, film and television, Chinese, or social sciences, the amount of video content produced is there, but this In this era, media that require 'people' have become much less popular. Traditional media has been greatly reduced, and new media needs data recommendations, in which many people are just doing homogeneous and repetitive work."
In this context, "the desire for personal creation and expression is still there, and a large number of such young people do not have so much money to make feature films. Short films are a channel to get people to go at a relatively low cost and with high frequency." Produce content." Wang Xiaoman believes in the significance and value of such a platform in this era. "Short films are a very flexible and diverse way of expression in the new era of communication. Its production capacity and development needs have great potential. "
When dozens of reviewers and lifelong reviewers expressed their surprise and surprise at the quality of the short films they saw in Xiamen, Wang Xiaoman said that it was because the screening base here was large enough, the samples were large enough, and the competition to select the best was extremely fierce. , so that the short films that can stand out can truly be "one in a hundred".
At the opening ceremony, Wang Xiaoman proposed, "We don't want to be a vanity fair, we want to be an Olympics for young filmmakers." Regarding this concept, Wang Xiaoman further explained that it is because this platform emphasizes competition, "It is mainly about players and directors, and the basis of the festival is its competition system. We hope to create fair and just competition on the same stage, as well as international exchanges and Attributes and implications at the level of cultural exchange.”
As an original short film festival, Wang Xiaoman said that the organizing committee intentionally set up a fair and objective three-review system. "No one with special interests will come. The judges at each stage will have people with different identities." different angle."
In Wang Xiaoman’s observation, the power of most film festivals actually lies with the film selectors. “If you are familiar with the film selectors, the film selectors will watch your films and have the opportunity to recommend your films. Traditional film festivals include The Big Three, centered on the selection and appointment system of chairman and artistic director, is actually quite 'dictatorial' to a certain extent. Many times the energy of the film studio has to be spent on public relations." And "I feel that we are giving a lot of support to many people who are not in the film industry. It provides a wider range of opportunities for people, it breaks down class, breaks down background, breaks down age.”
Here, there is a "Growth Unit" for old friends who come to this short film festival. "In the past five years, we have accumulated a very large database and found that we are constantly making short films every year and are constantly casting our directors. This year (2023) there are about more than 300 directors. In other words, the creation of the entire short film has presented a A very powerful vitality, it is slowly forming a creative habit among young creators and people who love images. This habit is free and easy for them, and it has formed a very good The power of circulation.”
A media carrier with the attributes of a new generation of elites
"This year (2023) we have achieved the largest collection of content in the entire short film field. This number is increasing every year, which has brought a heavy workload to the organizing committee." Wang Xiaoman revealed that from tens of While sorting out the contents of her hard drive, she discovered, “This year, a large number of dialect short films appeared, showing the very localized power through regional dialects; the most surprising thing this year is that the quality of the more than 800 animations is very high, and the richness of Chinese aesthetics Beyond our imagination. At the same time, many films from Chinese-speaking regions have been added this year, and a large number of short films created by them have appeared in our field of vision. These films allow us to see the system and context of Chinese-speaking culture elsewhere, as well as many places in the world. Young people overseas pursue and explore the identity of traditional culture.”
Part of the guest lineup
More and more stars are choosing to bring their short films to be screened here.
For example, while working as a judge, Lee Kang-sheng brought his latest short film "Windy Days with Clouds" to the audience. In Tsai Ming-liang's films, Xiaokang is a dull, melancholy and meek person. In his short film, he shows a richer sense of cynical and paternalistic character.
Huang Lu gave a breakthrough performance that is "difficult to achieve in a feature film" in the LGBT-themed short film "The Wave Is Like a Cloud", which she produced and starred in. Yu Haoming, who serves as this year's image ambassador, also brought his first short film starring in a science fiction work. While he revealed that "one penny was confiscated" for the short film, he also lamented that it is a joy to support young directors to create freely;
Zhu Jingxi came to Xiamen with a MV that she directed and acted in. She fulfilled her martial arts dream in the song, and went to the Shaolin Temple to train for half a year. Taiwanese director Cheng Weihao came with short films from his student days, and he was filled with emotion as he recalled the difficult years when he could not find funding.
Li Kangsheng, Huang Lu, Yu Haoming
Because of the large number of films, HiShorts!'s jury is also a large group. In the third review, dozens of judges from different fields around the world have a consensus on the quality of the films. As the largest short film gathering platform in China, at the end of the year, Xiamen can also see excellent short films that have won awards at many large and small film festivals at home and abroad.
On December 31, the fierce competition in each unit came to an end. The works that stand out in the fierce competition each have their own merits worthy of expectation and imagination. For example, "The Fishes", the best experimental short film, explores how in the ever-evolving modern civilization, humans increasingly follow the laws of the jungle such as "the weak eat the strong" and "survival of the fittest", and explores the advancement and retreat in a weird and twisted way; The Jury Chairman recommended "The White Horse", which tells the story of two old people in Shanghai, bringing out the historical causes and facing the confusion of human nature...
Huang Jianxin, the chairman of the fifth jury, came to HiShorts! for the first time. He admitted that he was actually curious and wanted to understand why short films, short plays, and short videos have such strong appeal to today’s public. Here he thinks about the corresponding changes in the structure of art after the fragmentation of time, as well as the relationship between creators and audiences after the viewing medium changes.
Huang Jianxin
In Wang Xiaoman's view, it is different from the short videos that are prevalent on the Internet. It still has its own threshold and aesthetic standards for creation. "The short film is still a high-level image quality thing. You can think of it as an image magazine. I think it is With the attributes of a new generation of elites, a new generation of narrators has grown up. They have certain commonalities, good family conditions, overseas study background, and their perspective of observation and desire to express themselves in the wave of reform and opening up in China."
Short films are richer and don't necessarily lead to movies
Different from feature films, short films appear to be more diverse, free and flexible in expression. However, the short film unit in traditional film festivals is more like a "preview" for new directors to lead to feature films. Here, short films are separated from the film. strong correlation. At the same time, HiShorts! seems to be committed to creating a communication platform for various types of art and pan-culture. Music, painting, literature, and architecture can all have interesting intersections with images.
Traditional film festival exhibitions regard short films as a way to lead to feature films. The ultimate goal of young directors shooting short films is also to lead to feature films, but HiShorts! gives short films more possibilities in terms of curation and competition system design. . “It is something that uses images as a lever. The six architecturally designed units cover the core of the entire creative field in China.
"There are not only traditional content-oriented classifications such as plots, records, and animations, but also explorations in the direction of MVs and experimental art. It even does not shy away from commercial advertising and has set up special units for them, thus gathering more diverse creations. Possibilities. At the same time, we can see the emergence of a single director identity on this platform. Many of them are "slash youths" with different hobbies and diverse perspectives, which makes their video works rich, broad and different.
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A distinctive unit belonged to MV, although the grand prize was ultimately vacant. At the beginning, Wang Xiaoman set up the music unit based on his own preferences, because "MV is a very interesting thing. I used to know the MVs of many bands by heart, and many famous directors also directed music videos in the early days, but now more and more They come less and less."
This unit is very popular in every short film festival. An interesting discovery is that many bands who shoot music videos at their own expense often have no money and do not expect to make money from this thing. "They just let their hands and feet go and shoot anything." On the contrary, the proportion of quality products will increase.”
As a judge of the music unit, Su Shiding was very moved after seeing a large number of MV short films, "Many MVs look quite poor. At first glance, they are made by independent musicians with their own money, but it makes people feel the driving force of creation. Musician It is a very lonely profession, and in these films I see people who continue to create despite this situation, and who still maintain their passion and live bravely."
Fu Han, the lead singer of Houhai Shark, also presented his own music video
At the same time, while achieving a series of sophisticated productions, the commercial unit "has become a lever and channel for us to create and produce advertisements."
Wang Xiaoman said with a smile that in the past five years, she has met a large number of "top directors" in the advertising industry. "These directors have outstanding image awareness, large operations, and strong business capabilities. In fact, they are very It is worth exploring. At the same time, we know many people in related fields through the commercial unit, and then we also give new directors the opportunity to shoot commercials, so that they can better obtain funds to invest in creation." Record of the award-winning film "Smile Sweet" I went on a journey to take portraits of old people in mountainous areas. The sad background was photographed with a sweet halo under the warmth of humanistic care.
"It is not a film category in itself. Short films are more of something that broadens the boundaries." Wang Xiaoman said with a smile that "I don't have the baggage of a filmmaker. I am not from the film industry at all." Therefore, the top-level design of this festival It is "starting from the creator, not from the needs of a certain industry. Only by constantly thinking about what the real needs are can we continue to verify them."
HiShorts!, which is running for the fifth time, has had long-term development prospects from the beginning, and in 2023 it finally achieved healthy operation and profitability. "We use the thinking of product managers to create a short film festival. In fact, there are more possibilities. We hope it will be a scalable, developable and sustainable platform." Wang Xiaoman said.
On January 1, 2024, the new batch of freshly released award-winning short films will continue to be screened in Xiamen.
